Bird Pillows

 

I made a couple of larger birds into a pillow.  The pillows are about 18 inches square.  I can see a few more of these in the future.

 

The flock has grown to 42 and that’s enough birds.  Now to assemble them. I need to trim them and sew them together. I won’t use sashing but may insert a bit of floral fabric randomly to add interest.

The Flock so Far

 The flock is growing slowly.  I have added a couple facing the opposite direction.  Unfortunately I only have enough blue backing to make one more bird.  The rest will be off white or pale green or a mixture of both.

Birds of a Feather…

  I am making a flock of birds which may or may not end up being a quilt.  It’s a fun way to use up a few more scraps.

Scrap control

 I decided that since my scrap tub was overflowing again, it was time to make another  scrap quilt.  I sewed together some long strips and then crosscut them to make strips.  I had a large piece of backing fabric in light beiges so I used that as sashing.  This is where I ran out of sashing fabric.  I’ll put a border on using a different beige and then decide if I’m going to buy backing fabric or do some more piecing.  The worst part is that the tub of scraps is still overflowing.

T-shirt Quilt

  

My cousin’s husband, John, is an avid runner and cyclist. When he saw some of my quilts he asked if I’d be able to make a t-shirt quilt.  I had never made one but thought I might as well give it a try.  

 

 The hardest part was cutting up all those nice new t-shirts. I measured the logos, sorted by size and colour and pinned a number on each piece. Then I made a graph arrangement of the sizes and colours.  There were 37 shirts so it became a large quilt!

I spent quite a lot of time arranging on my design wall.  I loosely followed the graph but ended up making some changers.  I decided that the pieces needed to be separated somehow because there were so many whites but not all the same shade. It was a toss up between red and black but I went with red in the end because some of the blocks were black.

 

It looks great on the queen size bed. I was a bit nervous about quilting over some of the logos which were quite stiff but my Bernina handled them perfectly.

John was quite happy with the finished quilt.

Getting There

 A few years ago at a quilt show I bought templates to make curved blocks.  The package only had the template for the larger blocks and I thought they made an interesting quilt. However, a few years later I found the small templates so I was able to make the quilt illustrated in the photo which was included with the large templates. This is my second attempt. I have been sewing the blocks into rows as I go because it’s very complicated and super easy to make mistakes. Yes there has been some ripping.  I also sewed every two rows together so now I have to complete sewing the rows and then decide on a border or borders. I have spent the last hour dealing with the scraps on the table. Some are discarded because they are too small, some large ones are sorted into colour families and a few ended up in the big tub of little scraps. Between Covid and the cold weather here (wind chills of -44 for a couple of days) I’ve gotten a lot of sewing done.

I’m Back!

 After many years of neglect, I have been re-visiting my blog and decided that the new year 2022 might be a good time to get back into it. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since my last post, including moving, grandchildren getting married and three great grandchildren.

Of course, one thing that hasn’t changed is the quilting.  I’m almost finished the second quilt from this pattern.  It’s a great way to use up scraps and a lot of time.

This is kind of a test run. I’ll be adding lots more pictures of what I’ve been up to later but for now this little teaser will have to do.

Flimsy

What with travel, company, Christmas and New Year celebrations I haven't spent much time in the studio in the last few months.  I did find time to finish this one to the flimsy stage. Now I just have to find some backing and quilt it.  I'll finish it with a black binding. It is pictured here on my queen sized bed. I had no idea it was going to turn out so huge. It may just be my new favorite quilt.

Latest Start

I have been collecting black and white fabrics for awhile so  I decided to put them to use. I am also using up a few bits of color from my scrap box. I saw this idea on Pinterest. I can't recall who posted it but I fell in love with it nstantly. I'll be making lots more blocks. Each one is about 6 inches square.

Another One Done

I pieced this one with Kaffee Fassett fabrics last year but didn't get it quilted because I wanted to use a wool batt. I finally got one last week and yesterday I put the final hand stitches on the binding. It has a wide black border all around which really sets off the wild colours in the KF fabrics. I love the wool batting. It's super light weight but warm.

Hunter's Star

Today I finished this Hunter's Star quilt that has been sitting waiting for border and backing fabric. I found the perfect coordinating fabric at The Kickass Country Store in Plumas.  It was made using the Rapid  Fire Hunter Star ruler  which is fantastic because it enables you to strip piece the blocks. It was easy to match the corners because of the strip piecing. I'm sure there will be a few more of these in my future.

I Spy the Second

I have started a new I Spy crazy quilt.  I went to Kickass Country Store in Plumas to look for novelty print fabrics.  They sell I Spy kits of suitable fabrics that they have put together so I bought one of those plus a few more quarter yards of other cute fabrics.  This  weekend our local quilt show will he held and I'm sure there will be  lots of vendors so I'll probably end up with more picture fabric.  I'm thinking I'll have to do several more of these.




Two of my granddaughters have been coming here to sew since they were small. Now they are 20 year old university students but they still manage to find time to come and sew occasionally. I must say that I think they are very talented.

Hey Jude

Now that Jude has received his quilt, I can show you the first I Spy quilt I made.  It was so much fun that I started a new one.  Now I am collecting fabrics with interesting images...What a good excuse to go fabric shopping.

New Quilt

I was working on the brown and gold quilt yesterday when I realized that it was put together wrong.  Rather than deciding to either finish it or fix it, I started a new random one, which is what I prefer anyway.
This is another I Spy done with crazy blocks.  I love this style.  There can be no mistakes. And the blocks all turn out the exact size because I make them bigger and cut them to size.  Plus I use up lots of scraps.

I took some close up photos to show the details.

The flash kind of faded this one but you get the idea.

This morning I woke up to more snow, unusual for the middle of April.  When it hadn't slackened off by afternoon I decided to face the elements and go to the studio.  The problem was, I had a path (very narrow) packed with my snowshoes, but it was completely hidden under a new layer of snow. I knew approximately where it was but every time I stepped off it, I was knee deep or more in wet snow. It took awhile but I finally made it and spent a couple of hours working on my latest quilt.

I have to sew in two more white horizontal strips and then finish assembling it.  The one in the magazine has a second border but I'm not sure I'll add that. It's already quite large, about 56x80. I also realized after it was mostly assembled that the magazine one has a white horizontal line between the large rectangle and the smaller square. Oh well, I never was very good at following instructions.  That must be why I enjoy random piecing so much.  When this one is done I'm thinking of starting another I Spy quilt which will be a relief after the precision (?) of this one.

I took this video out the back door. It's not often that you see it melting and snowing at the same time. The snow is winning so far...

Step Two

I have most of the pieces cut out and arranged. Since this photo I have sewn most of them together. If it wasn't such a chore to walk to the studio, I'd go out to take a new photo but since I'm going to an art/quilt show soon, I'll leave that for tomorrow. Stay tuned.

New Start

I have been working on a secret quilt for the last few weeks so that is why I haven't been posting. I'll show that one once the recipient gets it.
Now I have started a new one from a magazine. I don't usually  do this kind of quilt but was feeling stagnant and thought this might be a good way to get kick started again.  It seems to be working. I used different colours from the magazine and the biggest challenge is assembling it, trying to remember which colour in the picture is which colour in my quilt. In the end I'll just go by how it looks on the design wall.

So This is Spring?

We just had the second blizzard in the two weeks since I've been home from Australia. Talk about bad timing.

The studio looks so far away with all that deep deep snow in the way.

This is the big drift at the studio door. No way I am shoveling that.  Mr. Sun will have to get to work but he has been rather lazy lately.

I had to strap these guys on to even get to the studio.

But get there I did and I've made a couple more rows of blocks. I think I'll make two or three more so that it's a rectangle and then put on a fairly wide border or two.

Still Crazy

I have done more blocks for the kids' crazy quilt.  I am using up lots of scraps but there seems to be a lot left in the boxes. There is a picture in the middle of each crazy block. Lots of fun to do and I'll have a lot more fun arranging them when they are all done.